ENGL 201: Five British Authors

This course engages deeply with a small number of British texts spanning more than five centuries. Serving as an introduction to humanistic and literary studies, the course considers how these texts, written in both prose and verse, reflect, shape, and/or critique the dominant values of their ages. The course takes up such questions as what is literature and what makes it British? How do these texts engage with the history, dialects (early, modern, and contemporary), and fluidity of the English language? How do these works register and respond to the rise and decline of the British empire? How does the changing multiracial and multiethnic composition of Britain impact its literature over time? In order to address these questions and others, the course offers instruction in analytical reading and writing.